The use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) can support sustainable development within societies. ICTs have been supported by governments, private companies, non-governmental organisations, academic institutions and individuals. However, technological changes have made most ICT initiatives haphazard due to poor planning. There is no systematic plan on how to deploy services, infrastructure and devices especially in rural areas. For instance, in some cases, computers have been donated to communities in rural areas yet they are not being used, and ICT services have been deployed without the supporting ICT infrastructure. One of the solutions to addressing these ICT challenges is through the use of roadmaps to guide ICT solution implementation. This thesis proposes an ICT roadmap methodological framework to improve ICT roadmap development for rural ICT solutions. A composite methodological approach was employed in this research. This involves the use of qualitative research techniques such as participant observation, design exercises, workshops, focus groups and individual interviews supported by ethnographic studies. The Siyakhula Living Lab in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa was used as the case study. Studies were conducted to identify the current state of ICTs in rural areas, the future of ICTs and overview of roadmap developments. Rural users in South Africa, ICT experts in Europe and Africa, government officials and academic institutions were engaged to understand the current ICT planning, developments and needs. The author found that there are variations in individual ICT services required by rural users but, most ICT services in need fall mainly in the areas of health, education, entrepreneurship, agriculture and employment creation for rural people. These services require ICT devices and infrastructure which include computer peripherals, mobile phones, radios, televisions and wireless infrastructure, mobile infrastructure, satellites and broadcasting infrastructure respectively. It was found that the common future ICT projections expected in rural areas include: growth of mobile usage, social networking, increase internet services and localization of services. The roadmap framework is built based on the current state of ICTs, trends in ICTs, future technological projections and the plans currently been initiated in African continent. The ICT roadmap methodological focuses on how roadmaps could accommodate infrastructure, services and ICT devices to reach rural people. This should help rural users to be able to access public services within their respective communities using available ICT devices. ICT stakeholders could use the designed framework to improve the ICT roadmap development process for rural ICT users in Africa.

The overall purpose of this study is to determine the impact of social media on customer trust in small e-businesses. In addition, this research study seeks to find answers in particular on the level of improvement or enhancement, if any, that the use of social media has on consumer trust. Trust is an essential aspect in any business regardless of its size. Trust is what drives customers to purchase vendor products and services. In this digital age, small e-businesses are selling their products online. However, the lack of trust has been a major concern and a contributing factor to small businesses’ failures. This research uses a mixed-methods research design, utilizing two different approaches both qualitative and quantitative methods used alongside of each other. The first part of our findings presents the qualitative results from the interviews with a number of small e-businesses owners, and the second part shows the quantitative results from online surveys with the consumers. With the analysis of the two components of the study based on the results from the responses of the small e-business owners and the online consumers, we can infer that social media marketing has indeed greatly affected and changed the present small e-businesses trends. Our findings indicate that social media is at the present used as a trustworthy reference to gather information about the products and services of small e-businesses. The power of social media has also allowed customers and small e-businesses owners to build relationships and establish trust from their constant communication.

This thesis is comprised of three chapters that empirically examine two important areas in health economics: access to health care and health outcomes. The first chapter explores the impact of health care utilization on unmet health care needs (UHC) using four biennial confidential master files (2001-2010) of the Canadian Community Health Survey and applying an instrumental variables (IV) approach to deal with the endogeneity of health care utilization. The presence of drug insurance and the number of physicians in each health region are used to identify the causal effect. I find a clear and robustly negative relationship between health care use and unmet health care needs; individuals who are more likely to report unmet health care needs are those who use the health care system less frequently. One more visit to a family doctor, specialist or a medical doctor on average, decreases the probability of having unmet health care needs by 7.1, 4.6 and 2.8 percentage points, respectively. Further analysis by sub groups reveals that the impact of health care utilization on UHC is larger for females in comparison to males, rural residents in comparison to urban dwellers and those with low household income rather than high. The second chapter of this thesis examines whether the presence of the unmet health-care (UHC) needs has an adverse effect on health outcomes using the National Population Health Survey, a nationally representative longitudinal data set spanning 18 years. I pay close attention to the potential endogeneity of this problem. Five direct and indirect measures of health-related outcomes are examined. I find clear and robust evidence that the presence of UHC either two-years previously or anytime in the past, affects negatively the current health of the individual – controlling for a host of other influences. For instance, reporting UHC in the previous cycle reduces the probability of being in excellent or very good health and in good mental health, respectively by 8.1 and 1.2 percentage points; it reduces the HUI3 score by 2.9 percentage points and increases the expected number of medications used by 11%. Further analysis by looking at the effect of UHC when it was due to accessibility reasons, reveal that the effect of UHC because of accessibility reasons on health outcomes is larger than the one of the overall UHC, but the difference is small in general. Finally, the third chapter of this thesis examines the link between social networks and access to health care utilization, focusing particularly on the probability of having a regular family doctor. Unlike previous work that uses cross sectional data, I use panel data from the National Population Health survey to control for unobserved heterogeneity. Access to a regular family doctor is modeled using the dynamic random effects probit model, which makes it possible to explore the dynamics of access to a regular family doctor– for instance, the role played by past access status to a family doctor in predicting current access. In particular, I use the dynamic random effects probit model that controls for both unobserved heterogeneity and for initial conditions effects. I find robust evidence of a highly statistically significant relationship between social capital and the probability of having a regular family doctor. Although the marginal effects are modest, the results from all model specifications show that there is clear evidence that individuals with high levels of tangible, affection, emotional, social interaction, who live with spouse only or with spouse and children are more likely to have a regular family doctor, whereas those living alone are less likely to have a regular family doctor. The results also reveal that past access to a family doctor is an important determinant for both current and future access. The predicted probability of having a regular family doctor is about 18 percentage points (or 20%) higher for individuals who had a family doctor in the previous period, relative to those who did not. In addition, I find that unobserved heterogeneity accounts for about 25% of the variation in accessing a regular family doctor and is significantly correlated with the access to a family doctor over my long panel.

As a reaction to problems of the portal iKariera.cz with low numbers of visitors and registered users the thesis tries to evaluate the suitability, contributions and effectiveness of chosen online marketing tools and also their potential for solving those problems for the future. The thesis compares the contributions and effectiveness of SEO, PPC campaigns in the search engine of Google and campaigns at social network site Facebook.com with other offline and cross media campaigns realized at the same time. On the basis of a comparison of the outputs and other facts the thesis tries to give future oriented recommendations for the formulation of a marketing communication strategy for the portal."

The evolution of technology opens new opportunities for business ideas, as well as for marketing and promotion of existing brands and services. The study focuses on new trends in online marketing and social media and how to leverage them in business and marketing.

In this diploma thesis I deal with possibilities and conditions of increasing the competition abilities of companies by social networks. In the theoretical part I target essence and history of formation of social networks. I also looked at basic principles of their behaviour and discribed their sources of income. In the practical part I used various statistics of popularity and I chose social networks which can offer the highest increase of share at the market to companies which are interested. Consecutively I created analysis of penetration of chosen social networks to czech bussiness environment and I gave an objective account on this issue using case studies of the companies. At the end I suggested principles for successful managing of social networks comunity which should lead towards the increase of the ability to compete. The thesis will not be the most extensive one analysing social networks but it is a good summary of theoretical and practical knowledge and will serve as a very good inspiration for deeper research of with possibilities and conditions of increasing the competition abilities of companies by social networks.

The aim of this thesis is to create and effectively manage Facebook web pages for individual divisions of Import Volkswagen Group s.r.o. The thesis is divided into two parts - theoretical and practical. The theoretical part contains basic information about online and offline medias, trends in the area of Internet marketing and measuring of online advertising efficiency, which, unlike the efficiency of "offline" advertising, is easily measurable. In the past two years, social networks, especially Facebook and Twitter became trendy. The last chapter of the theoretical part is deals with the topic of advertising on Facebook, that prevails in the Czech Republic. and promotion on the social network called Facebook. In the practical part, some of the findings derived from the theoretical part are implemented and verified. The main outcome of this thesis is a development of well-functioning Facebook web pages, administration of which could be taken over by Import Volkswagen Group s.r.o. in the future.

Cette recherche vise à éclairer le processus d'autonomisation des adolescents, mis en jeu à travers leurs usages des réseaux sociaux. Regroupés entre pairs sur des espaces de communication où ils jouissent d'une liberté d'action, ceux-ci expérimentent des situations variées soutenant leur besoin de se forger une autonomie personnelle, affective, relationnelle, sociale et cognitive. A travers deux enquêtes, une observation des réseaux sociaux et un questionnaire, nous avons analysé la façon dont ces différentes dimensions de l'autonomie sont mobilisées dans les pratiques juvéniles en explorant plus particulièrement le choix des outils, les types d'activités, les formes de contenus et les interactions humaines. / The aim of this research is to clarify the process in which adolescents through their use of social networks, become autonomous. Grouped in peers in communication settings where they enjoy freedom of action, they experiment with various situations supporting their need to forge a personal autonomy on emotional, relational, social and cognitive levels. Through two surveys, an observation of social networks and a questionnaire, we analysed how these different dimensions of autonomy are mobilised in the juvenile practices by investigating more particularly the choice of tools, the types of activities, the forms of content and the human interactions.

The aim of this thesis is to find a method how to test the tools for an intervention with procrastination on social networks. The thesis tests and according to a built scale evaluates if there are people who are addicted to social networks. Further, the thesis introduces tools suitable for the intervention of this addiction and states distinct suggestions on how to perform a wider research to explore the most suitable tools. The thesis compares both the software tools centered on measuring, blocking, hiding and aiming, and psychological tools centered on how to work with oneself through calming down and mindfulness or creating a personal vision. The research is aimed at the PC and smart phones Android platforms. The outcome is a suggestion to investigate both tools individually described and their variable combinations during the intervention of the addiction to social networks to closely understand the effect of their using and practical implementation.

This thesis deals with application of the customer perspective from Balanced Scorecard and customer relationship management in the selected company Socialbakers a.s. First, this thesis studies theoretical basis of the chosen issue. The second part deals with practical use of customer perspective metrics. The current state of measurement and management in this area in Socialbakers a.s. is described and evaluated. Then knowledge gained from relevant literature is used to suggest improvements for this area.